


Peach Blossom Paradise

by pricklyteeth



Series: peach blossom paradise au [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Grad Student Yixing, Korean mythology & folklore, M/M, MAMA AU Powers, actual peaches, mindfucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:58:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pricklyteeth/pseuds/pricklyteeth
Summary: Yixing is onto something, something big. An ancient mythical land that remains unseen by mankind... and exists to this day, hidden from the human eye. He's not taken very seriously, but things start to go amiss when someone from the island he's trying to uncover catches wind of his discoveries.





	Peach Blossom Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> [prompt #117]  
> hello hello!  
> first of all biggest thank you to mod artemis for keeping this fest going;;; we love you, and i for one am so grateful for your kindness, patience, and dedication to this fest;;;  
> i'm sure this diverges from what prompter wanted, but i hope it's an interesting read anyway;; (also yes, the title is not only a reference to actual mythological text but also zhang yixing's peach, buy it on itunes)

 

Rubbing at his eyes, Yixing yawns, once again fixing his specs on his nose as he pores over the symbols on the screen.

They're enlarged by the stereotaxic magnifying glass he has digitally connected to his monitors, although that doesn't exactly make them less mystifying, scribbling notes alongside his transcription outline as he's been doing for the past 3 months.  
  
_The most frustrating thing about this language system_ , he thinks, _is that it’s chock full of similar sounds and words and is littered with holes in any kind of identifiable sentence structure_. _How did they even communicate? Was there so much differentiation in tone and pitch that wasn’t identifiable in symbol form that they could distinguish sound to mean different things? From the looks of it, they only had one vowel._  
  
He takes his glasses off again, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms. Without bothering to put them back on, he looks to the monitor at the right, peering through the zoom on the holoscope at the key to the map. The symbols start crawling around, some seeming to float up off of the page that’s being projected onto the screen and Yixing blinks rapidly, thinking the rainbow shards of holo light are refracting strangely into his eyes.

Maybe he really _should_ sleep.  
  
Suddenly, the symbols lift themselves up and off of the screen, swarming and bouncing around in his mind’s eye, fitting themselves together into a cohesive map, luminescent and shimmering. Something about the way that the image presents itself feels assuring and somehow tactile, and Yixing is stuck in this moment of wonderment and awe before it’s broken; his cat, Chen, having come into his lab to butt his head against Yixing’s leg.

He must be hungry.  
  
In his haste to get Chen some food, Yixing misses a couple things: the strange bright purple glowing mark on his forehead, and the fact that there was a set of eyes watching him from behind his avatar as the map revealed itself to him.

 

\--

 

Yixing wakes up in a haze, having knocked out after feeding Chen. He’d been transcribing and analyzing the missing pieces of the map for days, and his body had finally had enough.

  
Dragging his hand back through the mess that was his hair, Yixing makes his way back to the lab, frowning at a faded scar on his forearm.  
  
It looks like a scar from a giant gash that was once there, but has since healed, but the last time he checked, he never had a wound that looked like that. Turning his arm back and forth, he notices that the scar is strangely opalescent, like the inside of an abalone shell. Did Chen smear holo powder on him?  
  
It doesn’t come off, and the skin underneath feels stiff, like it’s really scar tissue, and he goes to his first aid cabinet to disinfect and dress it. _Bizarre._  
  
He heaves a sigh before beginning his day, padding over to the pull up bar he has attached to his doorframe. He cycles through a set of morning and evening exercises as part of his routine. His pull up routine goes in increments of ninety and involve upping the weight training by using his own body weight against himself, having to bodily upturn himself by the end.  
  
_If I’m going to be doing fieldwork at any point, I have to be fit for the field_ , he tells himself.

For some reason, transcribing the map today is going much smoother than it has been in the past few months, things starting to fit together in ways that he’s never been able to understand before. The source material he’s working with—a near ancient text that he rarely tries to handle even with gloves and tweezers and laminate sheets—seems clearer than it used to be, the impossible faded information coming to light as he’s working, a digital rendering on another screen taking shape as he fills in the holes.  
  
Mount Penglai.  
  
The mythical land where there was no pain or suffering, no winter or sadness, and bowls and cups never emptied of food or drink. Legend has it that the Eight Immortals lived there, eating fruit that granted eternal youth and healed all disease. Ever since he heard the folktale as a child, he had been drawn to it, something about the place sounding hauntingly familiar, coming from Mistress Wu’s lips.  
  
He doesn’t remember much about the home. You couldn’t let yourself get too attached to anyone, because sooner or later, they’d get adopted and you’d have one less friend. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.

The one thing he ever really felt attached to was this legend—and the thought of it, this place where suffering didn't exist, this place that continues to evade humankind, utterly fascinated him as a child. It clung to him as he grew up, motivating him to double major in university, landed him this job.

He'd never really considered anything else—maybe it was foolish, focusing on a mythical place as his academic and career focus, with only a handful of documents remaining containing its folklore, some detailing its supposed whereabouts, but it was his passion. Maybe it was really just a romanticized idyllic land that only existed in the minds of 250-210 BCE storytellers, scholars, artists and emperors, but the more he learned about it, the more convinced he became that it depicted an actual Mountain on an island in the Eastern Sea.

If his hypothesis was correct, and he could distinguish enough geographic markers, he could submit his research to the university to be published and the Chinese government could reclaim the island; after all, if it was written in ancient text, China would have a historical claim.

This was, however, personal research he would have to conduct; he just happened to be in possession of one of the primary source documents that he would need for his research because he was the only graduated student with qualifications in all of the fields necessary to complete this project. All the professors the museum had initially approached had advocated for him. On some level, it was a blessing to be remembered as the 'Crazy Mount Penglai kid'. His reputation preceded him through grad school, and this was a jumpstart of an opportunity for the thesis he was planning to write for his doctorate.

The digital rendering and translation of the text was what Yixing was actually getting commissioned to do—the museum didn’t actually believe the notes and map detailed a real place, but needed someone to transcribe the writing from the source text, which included an excerpt from the 'original language' that the people there spoke, and detailed some geographic markings of the island that Mount Penglai was said to exist on.  
  
That was the second half of Yixing's job; digitally reillustrate Mount Penglai and the island it was located on, so that museum-goers could have something a little more interesting to look at than tattered parchment with faded text that even Yixing could barely make out with specialized specs and the most powerful microscope known to mankind.

Not that Yixing was complaining—he knew this was probably the opportunity of his lifetime, and the fact that he didn't have to beg the museum for permission to access one of the most relevant documents for his doctorate research was a fucking godsend. Not only did it just kind of fall into his lap, he was getting paid for it.  
  
He's been really strangely lucky his whole life, getting accepted to one of the most prestigious schools in China on a full ride (although that was probably a charity move on his school's part), granted countless research opportunities with some of his professors, practically handed this living space when he'd 'graduated' from Mistress Wu's home.  
  
Yixing doesn't like getting handed things, and he's always tried to work to prove himself. Things have definitely not always been peachy, but it always felt a little bit like he was being taken care of by unidentifiable forces of the universe. Maybe he was just lucky to grow up under Mistress Wu's care. She had always been strangely fond of him.

Without realizing it, he realizes he's nearly finished with the digital rendering of the island, saving and sending it off to the shared file the museum curator, Tao, has access to so he's updated with Yixing's progress.  
  
  
It's a little after 1am, and Yixing wonders how the day slips by him so fast, knowing he'd probably starve to death working if he didn't have Chen to remind him he has to eat, too. At that thought, Chen leaps up into his lap, and he picks him up, going into the kitchen to whip something up for the both of them before bed.  
  
He rubs absently at the shiny scar on his arm as he waits for the water to boil, noticing that it's not as bright as it seemed this morning. It doesn't hurt or anything, so he dismisses the idea of going to the doctor's for it. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem very permanent.

Chen seems satisfied with the dumplings he's made, and rumbles happily when Yixing's fingers go to scritch at the sweet spot behind his ear, and Yixing figures it's nice days like this that kind of make it all worth it.

Despite the nice end to his day, Yixing can't seem to sleep peacefully, dreams fraught with paranoia, nameless faces chasing after him and the ever present feeling of being watched. He wakes up in a cold sweat, choking from the weight on his chest, and he nearly bowls Chen over in his panic. The cat looks up at him with both concern and question, and Yixing holds him up to put his face in Chen's fur.

"I'm sorry Chen-chen. Bad dream."  
  
He decides to get up then, poring over the text, willing the material to be comprehensible again. The symbols swim before his eyes, flecking iridescent before the island materializes before his eyes again.

There’s something so familiar about it, despite the fact that he’s never been, something about the image the language seems to literally convey feels like he knows it’s there because he’s been, somehow.  
  
Unseeing, he reaches for a pen, scrawling ‘Jeju’ into his notes, before the image begins to warp, and the choking feeling comes back. Only this time, it’s not so much a weight on his chest than a stranglehold around his neck.  
  
“How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of Penglai for you to understand?” comes a voice, deep and eerily gentle, considering it sounds like a threat.  
  
Yixing can’t tell where it’s coming from, vision a scattered film of warped iridescent projections, altering the familiar shapes of his lab into a sharp, distorted, horrific mirage, as if the landscape of his sight is literally being bent out of his control. There’s no identifiable figure anywhere he can tell, just this voice.  
  
“Wh-who are you?” he asks, gripping his desk, clenching his eyes shut before opening them, hoping it’ll clear his vision. It doesn’t.  
  
“See, that’s exactly the kind of question I don’t want to be hearing from a human. ‘Who are you, Where do you come from, How do I get there’, I don’t know if you’re realizing just yet-” the voice pauses, as an unidentifiable force knocks Yixing out of his chair, against the wall.  
  
“I don’t know what it is that is causing you to pursue this place, but I can make this worse. I can make this all so much worse,” the voice promises. “I can’t kill you, but I could make you wish I did.”  
  
Yixing slides down to the floor, eyes flooding with tears, confused and overwhelmed, his lab looking like it’s seconds from swallowing him up. It’s like living a fever dream, like everything is too hot and too real even though nothing makes any sense. He barely hears the gasp, the grip around his throat releasing, before he’s unconscious.

  
\--

  
Yixing wakes up in the morning with a sandy feeling behind his eyelids, groaning when he tries to stretch out. He must have slept in a bad position; he’s sore all over, especially his back and his whole left side. It feels a little like he was hit by a truck.  
  
He winces, getting up before trying to roll his shoulders back, groaning quietly at the pain. Maybe stretching today isn’t the best idea. He lets out a sigh before shuffling into the bathroom, picking up his towel to wash his face, patting moisturizer into his face, eyes still half closed. It’s not until he’s brushing his teeth that he notices, toothbrush nearly falling out of his mouth with his surprise.  
  
In the mirror, he sees a huge mottled bruise around his throat. Upon further inspection, turning his neck this way and that, the bruise seems to catch light, like the scar he’d had on his arm before. To his knowledge at least, he’s never known himself to bruise _sparkly_ , but here it is again. What could it have come from? It kind of looks like a butterfly, or like someone grabbed him around the neck with holographic pain—no. it can’t, it can’t possibly be.  
  
Uninvited, snatches of the dream he had last night come back into his mind’s eye. He’d been in the lab, and everything was bending, distorted, menacing. He couldn’t see anything properly, that voice, the stranglehold around his neck, getting slammed against the wall, even though there was no one there. His back gives a throb then, and he’s almost convinced.  
  
He tears off into his lab, expecting something, someone, a sign, something. But everything looks normal, where he left it. He moves to sit at his desk, unable to piece together what possibly could have happened. He runs his hand over his neck, alarmed at the strange texture of his skin where the bruising must be. It’s almost like shark skin; slippery but hard, not dissimilar to the arm scar he had the other day.  
  
Unsettled, he runs his hands through his hair before rubbing at his forehead with his fingers. Is he missing something? Did he forget something that happened yesterday that could explain this any better?  
  
He looks around his desk, as if scrutinizing it more carefully will somehow elucidate the matter. Everything seems to be the same as he left it, only… his eyes catch his notes, his own familiar scrawl, where he left off. ‘Jeju’ it reads. That’s an interesting hypothesis; that rather than the Ryūkyū islands, or the island of Kyūshū, Japanese Islands, Penglai’s mythical geography point is Jeju Island. He’s seen some research for it, but most of the research was highly speculative.  
  
The problem was, he doesn’t even remember writing Jeju down as a possibility—wasn’t even brainstorming possible geographic points on this particular page of notes. Sitting back in his chair, he runs his hands back through his hair, trying to understand if this changes anything.  
  
More than ever, he’s determined to figure it all out. Somehow, the markings on his skin have to mean something—nothing adds up yet, but they will. They have to.

  
  
\--

  
  
“Does the number nine mean anything to you?”  
  
Yixing blinks. He’s sitting across from a man he doesn’t know, despite the fact that he feels they are on familiar terms. They’re sat on an ornately carved marble table, overlooking a courtyard, replete with a well kept gardens, fruit trees, a bridge over a slow moving stream. “Pardon?”  
  
The man laughs, cheeks curving as his lips part in an amused smile. His lips are so full, and his skin seems to glimmer, but so does everything else here. He stands to hold out his hand, and Yixing takes it, not knowing why he trusts him, but knowing he _does._  
  
“Kyungsoo, where are we going?” He’s not sure how he knows his name. Has Kyungsoo told him before?  
  
“You’ll see.” Kyungsoo doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered about explaining, so Yixing doesn’t push.  
  
He takes him down a short flight of stairs, out into the courtyard, their robes trailing behind them. Their path is lined with pebbles, but Yixing can’t feel them. Pulling up his robes so he can see his feet, he gasps. The earth rolls up underneath to carry them along, almost like a living, organic conveyor belt.  
  
“Are _you_ doing that?”  
  
Kyungsoo snorts. “Let me ask a better question: are _you_?”  
  
Yixing blinks. “Well, not to my knowledge…”  
  
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, though there’s a small smile playing at his lips. He still hasn’t let go of his hand. “If you aren’t doing it-” he lifts his free hand with an upwards flick of his wrist, sending a several stone slabs across the courtyard before them,”then clearly it must be someone else.”  
  
Yixing ducks his head, feeling embarrassed. Kyungsoo’s manner of speech is so direct; even his sarcasm sounded genuine. Yixing’s never been great at reading people anyway, but it doesn’t help the fact that he’s fighting down a blush.  
  
They arrive at a waterfall, though the water behaves very strangely here. It comes down in a perfect endless sheet, so uniform that Yixing can see his reflection in it.  
  
“There.” Kyungsoo gestures with his chin, letting Yixing’s hand go now.  
  
Yixing frowns, scanning his reflection before he sees it. There’s a small glowing scar in the center of his forehead, shaped like the number 9.  
  
He wakes up then, out of breath, scrambling out of bed to get to a mirror, nearly slamming into the doorframe of his bathroom.  
  
It’s still there, the little mark.  
  
As if inscribed on his forehead, it glows a bright iridescent shade of purple. Pushing away from the bathroom, he goes back into his bedroom, rifling through his belongings to find his phone so he can take a picture. This has to be something. It has to mean something.  
  
He finds it under a pile of clothes, willing it to turn on before he realizes it’s out of battery. Frustrated, he goes to plug it in, powering it on before he realizes that for whatever reason, the scar doesn’t photograph.  
  
He can feel it on his forehead, but it won’t show up on screen. Perhaps it is best if he doesn’t send this off immediately anyway—he’s already in a precarious situation with the academy, and the last thing he’d want to do is throw away all credibility.  
  
Afterall, who’d believe him? The ninth?  
  
It’d be too ludicrous to believe. Anyone could just fabricate a story like this, or apply some kind of makeup to provide some kind of evidence for something that sounded even farfetched to himself. No, he’d have to have more. Some kind of empirical evidence.  
  
He goes to his lab to pull up his proposal document, outlining his goals before turning back toward his research. He just has to establish that Jeju, without a doubt, according to cross translations, is the terminal point. That there’s reasoning behind going to do research there.  
  
Slipping his glasses on, he gets back to work.

  
\--

  
“Catch.”  
  
Kyungsoo tosses over a peach, just plucked. It looks unbearably juicy, and it’s so tender it nearly falls apart between Yixing’s teeth, no give.  
  
Kyungsoo chuckles, reaching over to dab at his chin with the sleeve of his robe, where the juice runs down. “Someone’s a very messy eater.”  
  
Yixing pulls the peach away from his mouth, finishing the bite in his mouth before licking over his lips. He doesn’t miss the way Kyungsoo’s eyes follow the movement, something tight coiling in his stomach at the intent in his eyes. So it’s not just him.  
  
“Would you like a bite?” Yixing asks, holding up the peach, the juices beginning to drip down along his fingers.  
  
Kyungsoo reaches forward to take a bite, and the way his lips stretch around the fruit, pleased hum sounding as he does, is near pornographic. It’s as if time slows down so that Yixing has an unobstructed, unrestricted opportunity to appreciate the way Kyungsoo’s tongue swipes over the corner of his mouth.  
  
He seems amused, smile playing at his mouth. “Would you like some nectar to go with that? Ambrosial tea? I have to change my robes now anyway, my sleeves are all sticky.”

Yixing just nods, ever curious and already a little bit too infatuated. “I’ll have whatever you’ll give me.”  
  
Kyungsoo takes him by his free hand, stepping forward, and as if the world turns in pages, they step into his quarters, high ceilings and a large four poster bed tucked into one side, a floating table with seat cushions on either side before them, two piping cups and a serving pot already set out on the table.  
  
Yixing takes another healthy bite of the peach, wondering when this place will stop surprising him. He figures it won’t, not anytime soon at least. Kyungsoo squeezes his elbow.  
  
“Have a seat, make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.”  
  
He moves to sit, taking a small sip of the tea, watching Kyungsoo move to his closet, pulling out another outfit before he begins disrobing, clothing sliding off his shoulders, down his back. Kyungsoo’s body is unreal, slender or broad in all the right places, bottom full and round, curving into thick thighs. At the sight, Yixing chokes a little on the bite of peach that’s in his mouth, swallowing it down.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
Yixing wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve, blinking in surprise. He always felt so out of his element around Kyungsoo. “I-I didn’t say anything.”  
  
And then Kyungsoo turns around in full display, and Yixing has to avert his eyes, blush burning on his cheeks. Something about how direct he is makes him feel absolutely virginal.  
  
“Hmm. You must have thought it then. I definitely heard something,” Kyungsoo hums, coming over, still unclothed.  
  
His panic over Kyungsoo being able to hear his thoughts is immediately overshadowed by the fact that he is walking over without clothes on. Yixing’s grip tightens unconsciously around the peach, and the juice sluices down his arm before he sets it down, trying to shake the excess off his hand.  
  
Too quickly, Kyungsoo is next to him, holding his sleeve out to see how soaked through it is at this point, clucking under his breath before he’s slipping onto Yixing’s lap. “We’re going to have to get you out of your robes as well, aren’t we?”  
  
He waits, despite having come all the way over to sit on Yixing’s lap completely nude, for a response.  
  
“Um. Yes. Right.”  
  
Yixing hates how he’s been reduced to monosyllabic responses, but he’s not sure if he would blame anyone else in this situation.  
  
Kyungsoo just leans forward, licking a stripe up from his chin to the corner of his mouth, where remnants of juice remain, before he’s pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips. “Are you always like this? Stilted and awkward?”  
  
Yixing’s hands still where they find themselves on Kyungsoo’s hips. “I’m not exactly the smoothest man I know, but I think I’m just particularly caught off guard around you,” he confesses.  
  
That seems to please Kyungsoo. He presses a smile to Yixing’s bottom lip, sucking his tongue into his mouth when shifting forward onto Yixing’s crotch causes his lips to part in a gasp, pressing himself down against his hardening cock.  
  
Kyungsoo’s fingers slide down his chest, hips undulating torturously against him as breathy moans escape his lips. His fingers find the knot that ties Yixing’s robes together, pulling it apart as he rocks himself down, his own cock straining against his stomach, leaking.  
  
Yixing is so tempted, his hand moving before he even fully registers it, wrapping around Kyungsoo’s aching cock, thumbing over the head as he strokes over him, matching the languid pace of his hips. Kyungsoo moans at that, eyes blinking open from where they’d fluttered shut, looking like a molten gold, glowing under Yixing’s ministrations. It’s mesmerizing.  
  
Kyungsoo pushes his robes off of his shoulders, down his arms, chasing the material with his tongue where the sticky remains of peach juice cling to his skin. His eyes never break contact with Yixing’s even as he licks up his wrist, takes his fingers into his mouth, cheeks hollowing as he sucks over them.  
  
Yixing squeezes over Kyungsoo’s cock with his hand unoccupied by his mouth, and his head rolls back, hips lifting to follow Yixing’s fingers. He reaches back, procuring a jar of lubricant to work over Yixing’s cock, biting down on his lip. “Perfect,” he murmurs, eyes glittering.  
  
Yixing has to disagree. “Have you seen yourself?” he asks, thumb rubbing up underneath the head of Kyungsoo’s cock, pleased at the way his brows knit in pleasure.  
  
He slicks up his own fingers, reaching behind Kyungsoo to tease at his rim before sliding the slippery substance inside, reveling in the way that he pushes himself down against his fingers, walls tight. He kisses down Kyungsoo’s slack jaw, teeth and lips marking up his neck among the constellations of moles speckled across his skin.  
  
Kyungsoo reaches up, fingers trying to find purchase against his stomach, trying to communicate what he wants despite being consumed by pleasure. “Give it—your cock—give me your cock,” he gets out, fingers wrapping around the base of his leaking shaft, lifting himself before Yixing slips his fingers out.  
  
He lets out a breath, eyes flicking open to watch Yixing’s face as he slides down onto his cock, slowly, so that Yixing might feel every centimeter of him, feel the moan that rumbles through his chest at the sensation of being filled.  
  
They stay there for a moment, chests heaving as they look into each other’s eyes, as if something massive, something bigger than Yixing knows he can fully appreciate is happening. But he can feel it, he can sense it.  
  
Kyungsoo is the one to break it, something tender in the way he moves to catch Yixing’s mouth with his own, something vicious in the way his hips snap down against Yixing’s.

Their skin slaps together lewdly, something entirely carnal about the way they let their bodies give way to rhythm and pleasure.  
  
Yixing wakes up as he’s about to come, spilling heavily between his stomach and his sheets. He lays back, contemplating the ceiling for a moment, putting off getting up to wash his sheets to wonder.  
  
Dreams comprise a fair amount of the foundational Chinese texts regarding Penglai. Perhaps… this was a similar phenomenon?

He pushes his blankets off of him, wiping his hand off on them as he does so before he stops, noticing the fingers that Kyungsoo had his mouth around had gone the same holo-iridescent purple, as well as down along his arm where Kyungsoo had his tongue.

There was certainly no precedence for this in the ancient text, though.  
  
He chanced a look at his dick before promptly letting the band of his sweatpants snap back against his skin.

Nope, he’d never read anything remotely related to _that_ before.

  
\--

  
He lets out a breath, opening the doors to the presentation hall. Today is the day. He’d submitted his research proposal, pored over maps, geographical amalgamations of data regarding physical changes of topography, his own graphic representations of original texts. He was as ready as his research allowed him to be.  
  
It’s not a particularly large group of trustees and members that await him—there wouldn’t be, just a couple heads and a couple professors that can actually follow his translations and geographic substantiations.  
  
He loads his documents, bringing up the three dimensional topographical map he’d finished for the museum onto the table projector, the map hovering in the digital subspace above the table, front and center.  
  
“Hello esteemed guests, director, professors. What you are looking at here is a to-scale model of Mount Penglai, as per the descriptions of its geography across various texts, but especially works thought to be written in the original language of the residents of the mountain that I had access to while translating for the National Museum of China. This was done without reference to any outside sources, and yet-” he switches the map out with a tap to his monitor. “look at the similarities between this map and this one, based on modern day Jeju Island. There are some differences, for sure, but when taking geographic change over time into account, including various lines of research regarding weathering, the similarity is truly remarkable.”  
  
“My proposal is simple: if the academy would allow it, I’d like a grant to further pursue my research there. If my hypothesis is correct, and the island truly matches ancient Chinese texts, there would be significant reason to claim the island as China’s. If Jeju island is truly the terminal point between the earth and Penglai, there would be historical basis behind the idea that all the islands in the Eastern Sea belong to China. If my research goes well, I’d like for it to bring glory to this nation.”  
  
He’s not finished yet, but already there is laughter. Dark and cruel and increasing in volume. It’s the director. “It’s a myth!” he roars, something sinister about the way he can’t seem to stop laughing.

“You’re lucky enough you can get museum work having only focused on translating mythological texts, you naive fool. To be standing there, asking for a grant, for the academy’s support? It’s ludicrous! Historical basis or not, China will have little to do with meddling in Korean territory at the moment. Do you even have any idea of what’s going on in the world we’re currently living in?”  
  
He sits back in his seat, sneering as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t even think this dignifies a response, but no. There’s no reason to fund this endeavor, and the results, even if they come out positively, wouldn’t align with the People’s Republic of China’s aspirations. Dismissed.”  
  
Yixing can’t do anything but bow and collect his thumbdrive and go.

 

That night, he gets a call. It’s Madam Wu.  
  
“Long time no talk, my little one.”  
  
“Was busy. Research.” He doesn’t mean to sound like a bitter, angst-ridden adolescent, but today was rough.  
  
“Hmm, I know,” she hums. “You asked for a grant today.”  
  
Yixing has long since stopped questioning why she seems to know everything about his life, even when he never keeps her in the loop, doesn’t really even have one. “I did.”  
  
“Why do you do this? You know it’d be easier to come to me. Now I have to do all of this extra work to make sure it goes through so you can do your work. Why take the hard way? Why risk yourself like this?”  
  
Yixing breathes out through his nose, trying to keep from blowing up. She only means well, she’s right, even if she doesn’t get it. He feels the ghost of fingers on his shoulders, his body craving Kyungsoo’s presence. He wonders what he’d think about this. “It’s more than just unnecessarily risking myself, Āyí. I have to prove myself. I can’t just keep relying on your connections and influence to get things done.”  
  
“You’re ashamed of Āyí,” she intones, and Yixing can almost hear her pouting. She’s too old for this.  
  
“That’s not it-”  
  
“Then let me and Doctor Lu do our job.” Her voice is stern again, no room for argument.  
  
“I don’t really have a choice anyway, do I?”  
  
“Not really. I don’t let my kids get embarrassed by low grade, unqualified academic directors whose sole sense of joy comes from demeaning hopeful grad students.”  
  
Before Yixing can respond, she ends the call, as if pulled by her anger into action. He flops back against his bed, rubbing his hands over his face.  
  
He’s always had her support. Hers and Doctor Lu’s. They’ve always supported him, always encouraged his academic endeavors. But he feels like he has to prove it to the academic sphere that he’s really right, so that they respect him. That China respects him. That his work as a scholar of mythological texts has basis in reality.  
  
“What’s so great about reality anyways?”  
  
Yixing blinks, sitting up. “Kyungsoo?” he calls out.  
  
“Lay back down. I’m laying down too. Lay with me,” he hears.  
  
He moves to lay back against his pillow, he curls up on his side. “Where are you, how come I can hear you?”  
  
“I’ve been hearing you in my head for a long time. It’s about time you heard me, too.”  
  
“I’m listening.”  
  
“I used to think it was because you were a threat.”  
  
Yixing pauses, abrupt flashes of the painful fever dream-state he’d been in coursing through his mind's eye. The voice. The threats. That was Kyungsoo. “The… the bad dreams. Was it a dream? When I couldn’t see straight? That was _you_?”  
  
Kyungsoo doesn’t answer for a moment. “I didn’t know you weren’t human, then.”  
  
_What?_ “What does that have to do with anything?” Yixing doesn’t understand, but things have stopped making sense a long time ago.  
  
“It has to do with everything. You don’t belong there, Yixing.”  
  
Yixing’s stopped breathing at this point. Was that what Kyungsoo meant? Is he really the ninth?  
  
“And yet,” Kyungsoo continues. “And yet you still mean to tell them. To expose us. Why?”  
  
Yixing stalls. He doesn’t know how to answer that question, in light of everything Kyungsoo’s telling him. “I wanted-I wanted them to listen, to respect me, respect my work.”  
  
“Your work risks undoing our sanctuary and our very existence, my love,” Kyungsoo responds. Even the endearment he uses sounds cold. “You know, I don’t lay with anyone but you anymore, but I won’t come to you unless you sort this out for yourself. Figure out whose side you’re on.”  
  
Yixing waits, not knowing what to say but hoping Kyungsoo hasn’t left. But he doesn’t speak any further, the quiet in his mind haunting him. It feels punishing, which he figures is exactly the effect that Kyungsoo wanted to leave him with.  
  
Lightning strikes outside, and soon, Chen drops in through the break in the mesh screen of his open window, licking his paws as thunder rolls out over the roof.  
  
He allows himself to be collected onto Yixing’s lap, stretching out comfortably when Yixing runs his hands over his fur, scratching gently behind his ears. “Where’ve you been, Chen-chen,” he hums, tracing his fingers over his forehead.  
  
Chen’s both an indoor and an outdoor cat, so Yixing’s never had to worry too much when he disappears. He figures he knows how to feed himself fine, because there have been times when he would be gone for weeks and weeks at a time, and he’d always come back just the same.  
  
The cat just rolls onto his back and purrs.

  
\--

  
True to his promise, since Yixing has not been able to come to terms with just about anything regarding a firm stance about the matter, Kyungsoo has not come to visit him in his dreams. They remain dull and vaguely anxious, and Yixing spends less and less time asleep.  
  
The only break in this monotony is the letter that he gets, announcing that he’s received the grant he’d applied for and permission from the academy to continue his research.  
  
It doesn’t feel like much of a success because he didn’t earn it, but he thinks, holding his plane tickets in hand, that maybe, maybe it could be an opportunity to reconcile himself with Kyungsoo. Prove to him that it’s not as it seems.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to stay updated or see tweetfic or yell at me (gently) for this, say hi, show support or are just curious, links to cc and twt, etc are on my [carrd](https://pricklyteeth.carrd.co/)! im friendly i promise 
> 
> hh of course comments are welcome and love love loved


End file.
